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WARSAW, Dec 21, 2006 (AFP) - Polish clerics were up in arms Thursday after a group of lawmakers filed a draft resolution in parliament calling for Jesus Christ to be proclaimed king of this overwhelmingly Catholic country.

"Christ doesn't need a parliamentary resolution to be the king of our hearts," said Monsignor Tadeusz Pieronek, a member of Poland's episcopate and rector at Krakow's Papal Academy of Theology.

Forty-six deputies -- or 10 percent of the total number of lawmakers in the lower house -- from the far-right League of Polish Families (LPR), the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, and the Peasants' Party ((PSL) signed the draft resolution, which was submitted to parliament earlier this week.

Signatories to the bill cited "theological and historic" arguments in favour of the proposal, including the fact that the Virgin Mary -- Jesus' mother -- was declared queen of Poland 350 years ago by King John Casimir.

"These lawmakers would do better to look after their constitutional prerogatives and let religious institutions and the church do our work," Pieronek was quoted by the PAP news agency as saying.

Archbishop Slawoj Leszek Glodz said the lawmakers should "pray and do penance -- it would do them good" while Lublin Archbishop Jozef Zycinski rejected the proposal as "totally unacceptable."

The lawmakers' initiative also fell flat with Poles, around 90 percent of whom profess to be Catholic.

A survey published Thursday in the Dziennik daily showed that 33 percent of Poles supported the proposal and 51 percent were against it.

"This means that, in re-establishing the reign of Christ the King, our first task must be to re-evangelize the Catholic community. We must fight for orthodox religious instruction in our schools, and above all, for a liturgy in which Our Lord is recognized clearly as our King, and this must be the traditional Mass of the Roman Rite, the Tridentine Mass. The liturgy of the traditional Mass is focused upon God, that in the New Mass is focused upon the community. The reign of Christ. the King cannot be established until He becomes once more the center of our lives.

Christ is the ruler of the kings of the earth and He must reign ----- Opportet illum regnare. Let us take the first and most important step in dedicating ourselves to re-establishing that reign by implementing in our own lives the requirement for prayer and penance demanded by Our Lady of Fatima. If this is done, and if Russia is consecrated to her Immaculate Heart by the Pope in union with the bishops of the world, she promised that many souls will be saved, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace. Thus her Immaculate Heart will triumph. With the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary will come the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Christ the King.

I would like to conclude on a note of optimism. Our Lady has promised that, in the end, her Immaculate Heart will triumph. She has promised this, and she will fulfill what she has promised. This means that without doubt her Son will reign ----- He must reign! Opportet illum regnare.

It is our duty and our privilege to dedicate our lives to re-establishing this reign, to achieving the re-enthronement of Christ the King."